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Lionel Messi pursues the eleventh La Liga title as Spanish football resumes

2020-06-11T17:59:17.198Z


The League resumes Thursday after three months without soccer due to the covid-19 pandemic. Barcelona is at the top of the table with 58 points, two ahead of Real Madrid.…


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Messi prepares for the league 1:05

(CNN) - “Our duty was to return prepared for this moment. It was difficult, but we have succeeded. ”

This is how the president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, describes the return of the first division of Spanish football.

Spain has registered a total of more than 240,000 confirmed cases of covid-19 and more than 27,000 deaths, but with new daily cases of the virus now below 50, and after just over three months without football, La Liga resumes on Thursday .

Following the example of the Bundesliga, the games will be played in the absence of fans.

Since the Bundesliga resumed, the advantage of being local seems to have disappeared. Of the 46 Bundesliga games that took place, only 10 were won by the home team, while 22 were won by the away team.

A twist in the return of La Liga is that Real Madrid, which ranks second in the table, will host their home games at the 6,000-seat Alfredo Di Stefano stadium, home of the club's second team, as renovations continue at the 81,000-seat Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

Real Madrid will play its remaining home games at the 6,000-seat Alfredo Di Stefano Stadium, where team B would generally play.

Which team will be champion?

Barcelona is at the top of the table with 58 points, two ahead of Real Madrid, while Sevilla, third, is nine points behind Los Blancos.

If the reigning champion can win the league for the third time in a row, it will be Lionel Messi's eleventh League title in his career, which means he would only be one behind the record of 12, currently in the hands of Real Madrid legend Francisco Gento.

It is one of the few La Liga records that the Argentine has not yet broken, and it is one that Barcelona fans would certainly adore stealing from his arch rivals in Madrid.

However, Real Madrid players will not let this happen without a fight, as midfielder Lucas Vázquez recently told Real Madrid TV to say that his team would treat each remaining match as if it were a cup final.

If Barcelona wins the League, Messi will have won 11 Spanish league titles during his career, one less than Real Madrid legend Francisco Gento.

"That is the starting point for those 11 games we have left," he said. "Eleven finals, we take them like this, and hopefully from here to the end we can get all the wins and have the league title."

Of the two teams, it could be said that Barcelona has a slightly more difficult return.

Both classics have already been played, but Barcelona still have to face the 2013-14 League champion, Atlético de Madrid, who are in battle to secure one of the four qualifying places for the Champions League. Diego Simeone's team is sixth in the table.

However, Barça will be strengthened with the return of Luis Suárez, who had missed the rest of the season after knee surgery, but who was able to recover in time after the league's suspension due to the pandemic.

Luis Suárez has been able to recover from knee surgery in time for the resumption of La Liga.

Alternative stories

The title fight is not the only story in La Liga.

Thursday's game is the Seville derby, between Seville and Real Betis.

Sevilla have not qualified for the Champions League in two seasons, and will be desperate to end the season with force.

Also competing for one of the remaining qualifying spots is Getafe, a team that has never qualified for the Champions League and was playing in the second division just two years ago.

Getafe CF is pushing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in the club's history.

At the bottom, having finished seventh last season, Espanyol currently underpins the La Liga table with just 20 points in 27 games.

The relegation would be a disaster for a club that has played in the top division since 1993.

The relegation zone is made up of Leganés with 23 points and Mallorca with 25, with Celta Vigo just one point up.

Espanyol, located at the bottom, face the relegation of La Liga for the first time since 1993.

The fan experience

With matches being played behind closed doors, La Liga has come up with a plan to provide fans with the most authentic experience possible under the circumstances.

"What we have decided is to give these two options on how the viewer wants to see the game: if they want to see it virtually with sound or without sound," said Tebas.

“We have worked with a Norwegian company that specializes in virtual audience, EA Sports and FIFA, because when you play FIFA (video game) you hear the real atmosphere of the stadium in each place. "I think we will see good virtual reality, but they [fans] will be able to choose whatever they want."

FC BarcelonaLa LigaLionel MessiReal Madrid

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-06-11

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